


A Little Faith

by static_abyss



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Drowning, F/F, Gen, Minor Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:28:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25459339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/static_abyss/pseuds/static_abyss
Summary: Nile had come back. Maybe because Andy and the rest of them were people she thought were worth saving. Maybe because they're all any of them have left. Maybe because Nile cared about them, this group of empty, broken-down soldiers, not worth a damn. They were, incredibly, something Nile wanted to preserve.It's fucking ridiculous. Baffling naiveté that will get Nile caught before she reaches her first century.God, how Andy hates the babies.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Nile Freeman, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 16
Kudos: 211





	A Little Faith

_I saw what you did in that church. I can't be that, Andy._

But Nile had come back anyway, had mowed down everyone who'd stood in her way because Andy had needed her, because she'd guessed at Booker's betrayal and had wanted to help them. Even knowing what Andy could do, what she'd done in that church, and in countless other places. Things Andy would do over and over if it meant keeping them all safe. 

Nile had come back. Maybe because Andy and the rest of them were people she thought were worth saving. Maybe because they were all any of them have left. Maybe because Nile cared about them, this group of empty, broken-down soldiers, not worth a damn. They were, incredibly, something Nile wanted to preserve. 

It's fucking ridiculous. Baffling naiveté that will get Nile caught before she reaches her first century. 

God, Andy hates the babies. 

Though that's not fair, Andy thinks as she looks out at the beach.

They're in Malta, surrounded by the vast expanse of the shimmering blue sea in the midday sun. As far as she can see, there's nothing but pure, clear water that fades into a robin's egg blue and disappears into the sky-blue on the horizon. There's not even a goddamn cloud in the whole place. Everything cheery and bright and alive in a way that's starting to grate on Andy's nerves.

She's too old for this, for all of it, but especially for Nile and her casual optimism, the way she stands in the distance and takes in the sun like there's nothing else in the world. How she smiles at the little children running past her and inhales like she's taking in the whole world. Nile, in her shorts and tank top, lit up by sunlight, existing so casually. So very much alive. 

She's a child, Andy thinks viciously, and still so much wiser than all of them. 

"Whatever it takes," she'd said back in Merrick's lab when she'd handed Andy the gun. 

She'd come back and Andy can't figure out why it matters so much that she did. 

_They all come back in the end,_ a voice that sounds so much like Booker says. _If only because there's no other choice._

She's being unfair again, though, because Booker, for all he's done, understands her in a way that Nicky and Joe will never be able to. Booker knows the pain of loneliness, of betrayal, the way heartbreak and love start to feel the same after a while. Because there's never anyone who stays forever. Not even Joe and Nicky.

She turns to them now, watching both of them sprawled out on the sand. Joe's trying to build a dome at the top of his sandcastle and Andy envies him his ability to relax, to feel safe when she knows none of them are. She thinks it's Nicky and the way he lets his eyes drift from Joe to the people around them to land, finally, on Andy. She stares back through her sunglasses and doesn't move from her spot to the side of the lifeguard chair. 

She nods and Nicky turns away, back to Joe, his expression fond as Joe gives up on the sandcastle and lies down. 

"You'll get sand in your hair," Nicky says. 

"I love sand," Joe says, smiling.

Andy is ready for the longing that rips through her as she watches them, that casual way they make room for each other, how one moves and the other follows in a subconscious dance that speaks to years together. She had that once, before Joe and Nicky, almost two thousand years with Quynh. Double what Nicky and Joe have. 

She sighs as she turns her face towards the sun, the heat searing into her scalp. There should be something different now that she's mortal again. She thinks she should hear the squeak of rusted gears as the cells in her body start to age. As everything within her remembers how to change, like the endless crashing of waves in front of her, over and over, a different cascade of water, pushing and pulling new sand onto the beach. 

She's changing now, too, and with luck, she has some forty or so years left in her. Not enough time to make anything right but just enough that she might leave their world a little better than she found it. Enough time to teach Nile how to lead, how to guide the rest of them. 

It's always been her, Andy thinks as she looks back at Nile. She's with Joe and Nicky now, knees tucked close to her chest as she looks out at the water. Everything about her calm and serene and young and open. 

She's good, Andy thinks, but more importantly, she still believes they can do some good in the world. She believes there's a reason, that they're not just grasping at straws, fumbling in the darkness of society, looking for a way to bring some light. Nile believes in Copley's wall, in the exponential change that comes from the things they do. Only because Copley hadn't been looking for the rest of it, because he'd gone into his research looking for the good and none of the bad. Because Joe's right. Whether they're good or bad depends on the century, on who is looking at what. A few hundred years from now, someone will look back on what they've done to Merrick and call them murderers, call them the greatest setback to modern medicine. 

And someone else will look at it all and call them heroes. 

Andy is so sick of it, so tired of feeling the same thing for millennia. But she looks at Nile and for some reason, she wants it to make sense. She wants to understand how Nile believes in second chances and in bonds that last, even when she's had to cut ties with her family. She looks at Joe and Nicky and wants them to last forever, wants to believe that when their day comes, they'll go together. She wants Booker to live. Not that half-assed surviving he's been doing. Andy wants him to really live, to want it more than he wants to die. 

She wants to laugh as she realizes how close she is to prayer. She closes her eyes and feels the emptiness of years alone, of unanswered pleas when it had become too much. She's asked to die so many times she's lost count, and yet here she is, finally dying. All of her wishes come true and all Andy can think of is how much she wants the rest of them to live. 

She doesn't understand why Nile's changed so much, why Andy wants to believe the world will be kind when she knows better. 

"God isn't real," she'd told Nile.

"My God is," Nile had said. 

Like Nicky and Joe had said. Like even Quynh had said once, back when they'd first fallen into bed together, and Quynh's mouth on hers had been enough to break down the walls Andy had built around herself. 

She turns away from the sun, away from Nicky and Joe and Nile, away from the laughing children and their scolding parents. Out in front of her, the water goes on forever, rippling waves that belie the dangers of the sea. She thinks of an iron coffin and shudders against the memory of nightmares that still haunt her. 

"Just you and me," Quynh had said before they'd dragged her away. "Us against the world."

"Like always," Andy had said. "Just us."

She wishes the other memories were clearer, the days where she and Quynh rode together into forests, looking for something new. When they were explorers and not warriors. When it mattered more that she kiss Quynh under the shade of palm trees and willows than it mattered that they didn't get blood on their clothes. She wishes she could look at the beach and not want to throw up.

That she could remember the exact shade of brown of Quynh's hair, the way she had of smiling when she'd done something impressive and dangerous. How she lived her life as if it mattered, that wild contagious laughter that spoke of coming home. Andy would have followed her anywhere, would have left everything behind and gone where Quynh wanted, would have made herself stop trying to live in a world that didn't want her. 

She'd been so alone. Before Quynh, she'd been nothing. Just a forgotten memory, a story mothers told their children to get them to sleep at night. Everyone forgets, and everyone forgot the things she'd done for them. 

"We don't need the world," Quynh had said once. "You and I, we're enough."

But they hadn't been enough, in the end.

The sunlight beams down on the beautiful Malta beach and Andy swallows against the bile in her throat. She remembers the first dream, that agony as Quynh had died on a sword, that fading away that came before that first harsh breath back to life. Agony to know that she hadn't been alone, to know that there had been no way she'd get to Quynh. No maps or fancy phones with directions to anywhere she'd want to go. Andy had had a horse and a face and nothing more. 

She'd searched for years, more than a simple human life, more than any one of them has ever been alone. She inhales against the sudden pain in her chest and looks at out Nile, Joe, and Nicky. She thinks of Booker, all alone for a hundred years. Emptiness and pain and sadness, that's what they'd sentenced him to. A life without hope where he'll waste away until the time comes for them to meet again.

It must be worse for Booker, Andy thinks. Worse because he was only alone for a year before they found him. Worse because he's still only a baby compared to Andy. Because those years will weigh on him forever. Even when he doesn't remember them anymore. 

"He can just apologize," Nile had said with all the innocence of a new immortal. "We don't know what it's like and we're all we've got."

As though Nile understands intuitively the loneliness that Andy and Booker feel. How the years hang heavy even now. She's sweet, Andy thinks, looking at Nile in the sand. She doesn't know what Andy and Booker know, what Quynh knows, lost at sea, dying but not dead. 

All good things end eventually. It doesn't matter how hard they hold onto them, at some point, even the good has to go. It's what keeps them all human, knowing that one day they'll have nothing. Not even each other. 

"Hey, boss," Joe calls, bringing Andy out of her thoughts. "Why so quiet?"

Andy turns to him, sees them all looking at her. Nile, with that quirk of her head, her eyes too knowing. And Andy can't figure out what it is about Nile that makes everything settle into place. Why now when Andy hasn't got much time left? 

"Everything okay, Andy?" Nile asks. 

Andy thinks of Copley's board, of all the missing pieces, of how Nile had caught a glimpse of the trail of bodies behind Andy. Of how Nile had come back anyway. She looks at Joe and Nicky and their joined hands, the way it's so easy to tell that they're together just by the way they sit. She thinks of Quynh and those stolen kisses during the day, of how easy it'd been to get lost in Quynh's arms, in the deep pool of desire that had brought Andromache back to life. She thinks of Booker and "have a little faith, Book." 

She inhales and she takes her own advice for the first time in ages. 

She lifts her sunglasses and smiles at the three of them. "You know me," she says. "I'm always okay."

-

Across the sea, Quynh takes her first breath in over five hundred years.


End file.
